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To be immortalized

This is a theme I see sometimes for people who are in the baby stages of writing a book or in memes on the internet: Anything you say or do I will write into a novel.

There is both a truth to that and a lie.

I am definitely inspired by real life. I write a lot of myself and my emotions into my work.

But here is the caveat. If you have wronged me, I will never ever ever write you into my novel. Not as a villain. Not as someone who gets killed off. Not as someone who is tortured. Not in any way. You don’t deserve that kind of space in my brain.

When I’m working on my novel, and I’m thinking about plot and motivations, and who all my characters are as people, I don’t want to be putting myself in your shoes. I don’t want to give you any more real estate in my head than you have already tried taking up. I’ll use my emotions to purge them, but those are mine. But you, you don’t belong inside of me. You don’t deserve to be immortalized in writing.

So if you see yourself in my novel, if you see your name as a character, or a personality quirk, or your brightly colored hair, take it that you inspired me. Take it as a compliment. Villain or hero, or side characters, or person passing on the train. I have now immortalized you. It means I value you. You are worth taking up brain space for.